Facebook shares surge on 138pc profits rise

Bumper quarterly results driven by mobile advert sales

Shares in Facebook surged nearly 4pc to a record $74 in after-hours trading on Wednesday as the social network revealed its profits had more than doubled in the second quarter.

The California-based firm said that net income increased to $788m (£462m) for the 12 weeks ended June 30, up 138pc from the $331m it reported in the same quarter last year.

Facebook’s revenue jumped 61pc to $2.91bn, up from $1.81bn in the same quarter a year ago, beating analysts’ $2.8bn prediction. This was the fifth quarter in a row that Facebook beat Wall Street forecasts.

The bumper results were driven by an increase in sales of mobile adverts, which accounted for 62pc of the company’s $2.68bn advertising revenues, up from 59pc in the last quarter.

The increase indicates that Facebook is succeeding in steering advertisers to its mobile platform at a time when most of its users are using mobile devices to access the social network.